Afghanistan becoming world's supplier of heroin

Afghan poppy crop likely a record as international sanctions flounder

Published 5:30 am, Sunday, August 5, 2007

Afghan officials watch opium products burning during a ceremony in Dah Sabaz on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan.

Afghan officials watch opium products burning during a ceremony in Dah Sabaz on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan.

Photo: Farzana Wahidy, AP

Afghanistan becoming world's supplier of heroin

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WASHINGTON — Afghanistan will produce another record poppy harvest this year that cements its status as the world's near-sole supplier of the heroin source, yet a furious debate over how to reverse the trend is stalling proposals to cut the crop, U.S. officials say.

As President Bush prepares for weekend talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, divisions within the U.S. administration and among NATO allies have delayed a $475 million counternarcotics program for Afghanistan, where intelligence officials see growing links between drugs and the Taliban, the officials said.

U.N. figures to be released in September are expected to show Afghanistan's poppy production has risen by up to 15 percent since 2006 and now accounts for 95 percent of the world's crop, officials familiar with preliminary statistics said.

But counterdrug proposals by some U.S. officials — including increasing forcible poppy field destruction in provinces that grow the most — have met fierce resistance, officials said.

Other proposals would link millions of dollars in development aid to benchmarks on: eradication; arrests and prosecutions of narcotraders and corrupt officials; and alternative crop production.

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Embattled efforts

Those ideas are the focus of the new $475 million program outlined in a 995-page report, which has been postponed twice — and may be again delayed due to disagreements, officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because parts of the report remain classified.

Counternarcotics agents at the State Department had wanted to release a 123-page summary of the strategy last month and then again last week, but were forced to hold off because of concerns it may not be feasible, the officials said.

Now, a tentative release date of Aug. 9 — timed to follow meetings between Bush and President Karzai today and Monday — appears in jeopardy. Some in the administration seek revisions along with NATO allies Britain and Canada that could delay it until at least Aug. 13, the officials said.

'Coercive eradication'

The program represents a 13 percent increase over the $420 million in U.S. counternarcotics aid to Afghanistan last year. It would adopt a bold new approach to "coercive eradication" and set out criteria for local officials to receive development assistance based on their cooperation, the officials said.

Although the existing aid, supplemented mainly by Britain and Canada and supported by the NATO force in Afghanistan, has achieved some results — notably an expected rise in the number of "poppy-free" provinces from six to at least 12 — production elsewhere has soared, they said.

"Afghanistan is providing close to 95 percent of the world's heroin," the State Department's top counternarcotics official, Tom Schweich, said at a recent conference.

Afghanistan accounted for 70 percent in 2000 and 52 percent a decade earlier. The yields in Afghanistan brought world production to a record high of 7,286 tons in 2006, 43 percent more than in 2005.

Value of business

A State Department inspector general's report released Friday noted that counternarcotics assistance is dwarfed by the estimated $38 billion "street value" of Afghanistan's poppy crop, if all is converted to heroin, and said eradication goals were "not realistic."

Schweich, an advocate of the now-stalled plan, has argued for more vigorous eradication efforts, particularly in southern Helmand province, responsible for some 80 percent of Afghanistan's poppy production. He says growers must be punished for ignoring good-faith appeals to switch to alternative, but less lucrative, crops.

"They need to be dealt with in a more severe way," he said at the conference sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "There needs to be a coercive element that's something we're not going to back away from or shy away from."